


Diving into the wreck

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-03
Updated: 2010-12-03
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: This is a story about a boat adrift on storm tossed seas that is missing both an oar and its second rower. About the futility of rowing in circles, waiting for a love that will never return. This is the wreck of who he is without her, the things that he misses and all the little rememberings that burn behind the eyes.





	Diving into the wreck

Have you ever  
tried to row a boat  
with one oar?  
pulling and pulling and  
just going around (around)  
in circles?

This is how I feel.

all the time.

now.

There is only so much  
that one can do alone.

I am  
forever waiting for an interruption to my favourite book,  
the pagerustleturnwordslisten - _there._  
Bookshops become empty mausoleums  
without her to brighten them,  
to ask what I am reading,  
to lean her warmth  
into my side  
and  
suckle on a lollipop (perhaps)  
or lick at chip salt (off her fingers).

She is less impatient in memory,  
but no less lovely.

I am lonely  
watching partners  
pairs people. Lonely moving  
across worlds, leaving behind  
years and miles and places I might  
have stopped and lived and died in,  
lonely.

Or not.

With her?

There is no one to:  
steal toast from  
share tea with  
attack with a flour-egg-water-salt spatula  
forgive me  
give me a tiny pancake for my troubles  
love me.

I catch others at the game,  
of filling her space.  
Sometimes in the smell of mascara  
sickening  
mouth-watering  
acerbic.  
The art of applying it to lashes  
brush-stroke by stroke  
it mesmerises until she catches me  
staring, staring.

I miss thick black clumps,  
wonder how the effect is created  
(consider teaching it to all new applicants)  
and then dismiss.

One day;  
there is a kite festival and  
with it  
memories.  
A day of travelling  
based entirely  
around Disney songs.  
Magic carpets and  
glass slippers  
and an ill planned safari  
(that isn’t in Africa).  
This same crepe paper and balsa carnival  
and an  
umbrella with a motor  
to pull us into the sky.

Does she wonder that my thoughts should wander? (Up, up high with the kites ahead.)

I am lonely you see:  
in a crowd  
amongst books  
with others close  
when there are pairs – _always_.

And if the boat  
had a hole  
and the water needed bailing  
and the oars were quite lost  
and the lake was deep  
and dark  
there is still ( _still_ ) no one I would  
rather be  
drowning with  
than  
her.


End file.
